1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an advertisement distribution system. Furthermore, the present invention relates to an advertisement distribution server and a recording medium on which is recorded an advertisement distribution program.
2. Description of the Related Art
A network system is known, which displays information indicating whether a user who is registered in advance as a friend is online. This system includes a server and multiple user terminals connected to the server via a network. A user registers another user in his/her own terminal as his/her friends in advance. When the user connects his/her terminal to the server while the terminal of the other user is connected to the server, a message of “ONLINE” is displayed in association with the friend “Mary” as shown in FIG. 1. Accordingly, when the user registers multiple other users as his/her friends, the user can know whether each of the friends is online as shown in FIG. 1.
Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 2, a system is known, which displays an icon indicating a video game that the registered friends are playing, as well as information indicating whether the friends are online. Such systems are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 2002-157204, 2002-324048, 2003-47776 and 2003-22228.
However, the network systems as described above only display the status of the registered friends and do not have advertising functions. Furthermore, the use of the network is now widespread, and the advertisement distribution over the network is not novel. In addition, when distributing advertisements over the network, the advertisements are distributed not to a specific person but to the general public, and such advertisements have little effect.